


The earth of a hundred nations

by towardsmorning



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ableism, Canon Character of Color, Community: queer_fest, F/F, Pregnancy, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-06 06:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>(Prompt: Hir parents kept a lot about the outside world from hir. Any queer identity!Toph)</i>
</p><p>"When Toph was a child, she had heard her parents arguing more than once about her future."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The earth of a hundred nations

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so first of all: using LOK's timeline, this is out by about ten years. Damn canon, being so canonical! But since this is technically ATLA fic, not LOK fic, well, I'm just gonna go with it.
> 
> Secondly, wow, this fic gave me hell. Goodness knows why.
> 
> Thirdly, this is my first time writing Toph and also my first time writing a blind character. If I fucked up and implied she was sighted, by all means tell me and I'll edit it out.

When Toph was a child, she had heard her parents arguing more than once about her future.

The arguments had shifted constantly; sometimes her mother argued that surely they could find some man willing to be discrete, sometimes she sucked her breath through her teeth and talked around the topic of Toph remaining with them into adulthood. Her father mostly leant toward the latter view, but every now and again exploded into anger and said that they would simply have to be generous with their wealth and ensure that the man kept them well in the loop.

Toph only knew this because they seemed to assume that being blind meant she couldn't _hear_ them when they raised their voices all of two rooms over. She knew it was yet another disappointment for them when it came to her blindness- the way of things was that at marrying age she would have been found a suitably well-bred man, but their shame at her 'condition' had proven to be a problem. It would be difficult to find a husband for a daughter they could not bear to acknowledge even existed. And anyway, her father had snapped more than once, who would want a wife who was blind? You couldn't take such a woman out with you, and what was the point of a wife if you couldn't show her?

That part didn't bother Toph. Marrying a rich man and clinging to his arm sounded terrible for a start, and any marriage would sound unappealing if it was like the one between her parents, which mostly seemed to consist of formal dinners and her mother being terribly deferential.

Being kept at home forever in lieu of marriage, though, that was worrying.

The first night Toph flew on Appa, she spent fifty percent of the time informing Aang that they better not be spending too long on the fuzzball or she was going to blindfold him every time they went up and see how _he_ liked it, and fifty percent of the time being silently, desperately grateful for the third option.

*

After that she fought a war, and never understood where the others found the inclination for all that when they were so busy counting down the seconds every day.

"What about Sokka?" Suki teased when Toph grumbled as much, laughter evident in her voice.

"That's nothing," Toph scoffed, feeling her face heat up just a little. It wasn't quite true, but it wasn't quite _not_. Sure, she liked Sokka a little more than the guy deserved, but it wasn't like she lay awake dreaming about little metalbending babies or anything. 

"Are you calling my boyfriend nothing?" Suki said, all mock anger, and Toph laughed deeply.

"I guess he makes good target practice," she said, and laughed again when Suki swatted her arm.

*

Now, of course, she doesn't have that sort of excuse.

"Don't you ever want to settle down?" Katara asks her once, Kya tucked into the crook of her arm. "Aang says it would help if you spent a little more time in the city. Not that he doesn't appreciate how much you already do, but..."

"Please, like you two spend all your time in one place?" Toph says. It's true, though not really the same. Aang spends as much time away from Republic City as he does in it, and Katara joins him as much as she can. Even now Kya is there and squalling and demanding she goes more often than she doesn't. But Aang is the Avatar and Toph is just restless, and Aang already has a wife at twenty while Toph has never found any man worth the time of day.

Toph has had nightmares about being eight, nine, ten years old and being back at home. She's had nightmares about being twenty and back there, too, with all the doors gone and no matter how hard she tries, bending her way out doesn't work in those dreams.

Before Katara can respond Toph raises her hand and shakes her head. "Gimme a few years and we'll see, Katara."

"I don't mean to fuss," Katara says, before Kya starts to cry and she has someone else to attend to. Toph excuses herself.

*

It takes her another three years before she loses her virginity. There's a man she meets coming the opposite way on a trip engineered purely because she was bored, who cracks great jokes and puts up a decent fight when she offers to spar, earthbender to earthbender, even if she naturally kicks his ass in the end. When she goes to oh-so-graciously pull him up he laughs self-deprecatingly and shakes her hand.

"Nice one. I've never seen earthbending like that."

"Damn straight," she agrees, because Toph has never taught anyone _quite_ what she does. It's hers, and that means something. Even her students get an altered version. Maybe that's selfish, but it means she has one hell of a party trick and anyway, she'll be teaching for years yet. There's time.

His hand is small and wiry in hers. He's shorter than her and when she pokes him after a jibe, he's thin.

He doesn't mention her blindness at all. Maybe he's heard of her, but if so, he doesn't say anything about that either.

He's a nice guy, it's a nice night, and they lose track of time. _Why not?_ Plus, she can just imagine the disapproving tone in Katara's voice, and it makes her grin. Even after all these years, needling the other woman is one of life's great pleasures.

It's all right. It passes the time. She thinks there's something missing, and somehow, the thing that sticks in her mind like a burr is that his voice just isn't right.

They laugh about it in the morning, and she kisses him on the cheek because hey, it's not like he's going to tell anyone she knows that she can be anything less than terrifyingly hardassed. She's probably never even going to see the guy again, and that's a shame, but what can you do?

*

Of course in retrospect, that point of view was a bad idea, because when she starts throwing up in the mornings she has no way to kill the guy. Or at least poison him so _he_ has to puke too.

Katara is, in fact, wildly disapproving, in that motherly, I-just-care-about-you way. _Sort of worth it,_ Toph thinks.

*

When Toph is four months down the line and maybe, in the back of her head, starting to panic just that tiny little bit about the part where _oh damn, I'm going to spawn a little baby and it's going to need feeding and looking after and all that stuff,_ she scrunches up those unfamiliar insecurities and goes for a walk in Republic City. She does now, when she feels those niggling doubts scratching at her mind. She walks and feels the ground beneath her and thinks, _I helped make this. I think I can manage one baby._

It's evening and the park is almost deserted when she reaches it; so far as she can feel there's only one person there besides herself. And she can definitely feel that person, because they're earthbending. Badly.

The person- a woman- spins around when she hears Toph approach. Just to make sure she's on edge, Toph grins.

"I, uh," she stammers, and Toph laughs.

"Practising? Funny place to do it."

"I wasn't..." apparently sensing that this isn't going to convince anyone, she relents. "Okay, yes, I was, but don't tell anyone!"

"Why shouldn't I?" Toph asks, enjoying this immensely. She doesn't actually care and has no interest in following through with anything, laws about ripping up park turf aside, because if nothing else the paperwork will probably end up having to go through her and Toph _hates_ paperwork. She especially hates the part where half the force consistently forgets the part where she can't read.

"Because I don't want you to?"

Toph cocks her head to the side, considering. The wind is beginning to pick up and she has to resist the urge to rub warmth up her arms. "How about you make a better argument somewhere I can eat?"

"All right," she says, sounding relieved. "My name is Li, by way."

"Toph Bei Fong."

"Oh," Li says, syllable rising in surprise. "I- um, I didn't- nice to meet you!"

Toph claps a friendly hand onto Li's shoulder, and then tightens it a little intimidatingly. "Yep. Now c'mon, I'm hungry and eating for two."

*

"Pro-bending," Toph declares forcefully over a bowl of noodles two hours later, raising her voice around the clatter of the busy shop, "is _pathetic._ "

"It is not!"

"It's all ducking and weaving," she insists, shaking her head. "You can't earthbend like that. That's why you were practicing? Man, no wonder you sucked."

"I haven't had much time to practice," Li says, a little sulky, a little embarrassed. Toph is pleased to note that she doesn't actually try and insist she didn't suck. She's also pleased to note that Li seems to have gotten over stammering and intimidation, which automatically makes her better conversation than ninety percent of the people Toph knows.

"You can practice all you want, but it's still going to be throwing pebbles around and ducking everything the other team throws at you. Earthbending is about standing your ground, not... that."

"You can't just throw a boulder in a tournament, it's dangerous," Li shoots back, but Toph thinks she hears reluctance in that.

"Hey, it worked for us. That's half the fun. What's the point in a fight if nobody can actually do anything?"

"Us?"

Right, Toph thinks, Earth Rumble isn't the kind of thing you can just throw out and expect to be recognised in Republic City. "Oh yeah, kid. This place didn't invent hitting each other for sport."

"Kid," Li laughs, amused instead of insulted. "You look about the same age as me from here."

"I wouldn't know. It must be all that whining coming outta your mouth, makes you sound younger."

Li laughs again, and this time Toph listens carefully, because she likes the sound. It's warm and full and a lot less inhibited than the nervous stuttering in the park. It's not a sound she'd mind hearing again.

"Well then Li," she says, leaning back and crossing her hands over her swollen stomach, "Want me to teach you real earthbending some time?"

*

"I wish you wouldn't push yourself, Toph," Katara inevitably frets when three weeks later Toph has spent more days than not doing just that with Li. "I know you aren't far along yet, but-"

"Come on, Katara, lighten up. I'm not gonna break." In the privacy of her own head, she adds that she's mostly sitting around with her feet planted firmly on the ground, yelling out instructions and feeling whether they're being executed correctly. But Katara likes fretting so it's practically doing her a favour to give her something to worry about, Toph thinks.

"I suppose not," Katara says, fond. "At least you haven't gone running off again."

"More like hobble," Toph grouses, and then immediately regrets it. "Nah, you're stuck with me for now."

"Then you need to introduce me to Li and let me thank her," Katara says wryly.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

It wouldn't be accurate to say that she's only stuck around because of Li, but it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that without Li there she'd probably have made excuses to leave 'just for a couple days' these last few weeks. Her feet hurt, her stomach is heavy, her back aches; all of that is what weights her down and keeps her here. But it's less of a cage when she gets to go and shout at Li and listen to the other woman laugh and call back counter-insults, Toph's regular abrasive taunts making her less and not more inhibited. She's starting to get good, too, and Toph loves it when students improve while she observes, always has. They're moving onto complicated stuff now, stuff that Toph hasn't brought into lessons before.

"Mm," Katara says, non-committally. "I still want to meet her, though. She sounds interesting."

"Yeah," Toph says, and restrains herself from blurting out some kind of sappy praise. She's not as bothered about that kind of thing with Katara, but that doesn't mean she's totally lost her brain-to-mouth filter. "I guess you could drop by when we're practising some time. Just don't bring up all that 'I wish you wouldn't push yourself' crap, I have a reputation to protect."

"And a student to impress?"

"Exactly," Toph says, and doesn't mention that she doesn't really think about Li as a student much.

*

There's a difference, and a pretty big one at that, between learning something and knowing it. That's not actually something Toph discovered through teaching, but it is something that helped her be a better teacher- helped her understand why throwing knowledge at a student isn't going to magically make them know it inside out. Toph _knows_ that the world isn't always made up of husbands and wives, because she's travelled over more of the world than she hasn't and it would be pretty hard to miss when you've got that kind of experience under your belt. But growing up inside her parent's home hadn't included that sort of thing, and her childhood was endless debates about whether men would be in her life or whether nobody would.

So Toph has learned enough to think about why she knows Li's laugh note-perfect and replays it to herself every now and again, and she thinks it has something to do with Toph's observation about the voice of her kid's father. But it doesn't feel like something she really knows, bone-deep, in the way Toph thinks of herself as knowing everything about who she is.

*

Toph Bei Fong cannot stand the idea of anything less than that knowledge, so of course she beckons Li over one day and kisses her, halfway through practice so Li is dusty and sweaty and half-panting from the exertion and the sun beating down. Li doesn't have more than a second of surprise between Toph's hand on her face and their mouths pressed together, which seems promising, especially since Toph has next to no experience with whether someone actually wants you to make out with them. So does the fact that she kisses back with considerable enthusiasm. And so does the fact that it sends a flood of warmth down Toph's spine that feels _much_ more enticing than her previous attempt.

It doesn't last long. Toph wonders briefly whether Li is staring at her or looking away, and reaches a hand out to check- but Li catches her wrist and entwines their fingers together.

"Can we take a break, maybe?" she asks, sounding perfectly composed and cheerful.

"Lazy," Toph says, smiling herself, "but just this _once_."

*

"Well, okay," Toph says later, sprawled out on her bed, "I guess we can count that as a lesson. Of sorts."

"There's going to be a test," Li teases, and laughs when Toph punches her arm. Gently.

*

Toph supposes that this is another third option, in the end, like running away with her new family had been. A wife without any marriage and a child without any husband. She does wonder, briefly, what her parents would have made of it. Her conclusion boils down to 'I don't care'.

"You still have to meet my parents, though," Li tells her when she voices the last part aloud. "Please try not to scare them. They're nervous enough about who I'm bringing home anyway."

"No promises," Toph insists, smiling sweetly at the sound of Li's groan.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Enough To Go By, by Vienna Teng.


End file.
